Forgotten Sequels: Truth or Dare 3

Please let this be the end!  I made it through Truth or Dare?, which was just a random VHS mess.  I survived Truth or Dare 2?, which was just a giant, insulting dream sequence. 

 Can this film be worse or is it just bound to be better by default?  Well, it's still a Tim Ritter film, so I'm just going to go ahead and say 'no.'  

So what's the plot here?  Well, it involves not the actual killer from the series, but a new one killing those seeking to profit from his legacy.  That's...different, but still kind of silly.  

They've also do some clever/lazy retcon work to make a minor character into a series-connector.  

On one hand, I'll give you credit for using your footage.  On the other hand, it makes no sense and is just stupid.  Without further ado, let's begin...

We begin with a quick recap of the first film and show the ending of the second one with the group discussing Mike Strauber being given probation.  Say good-bye to two of those characters, by the way, as only one of them will play a part in the film from hereon out.  

The remaining doctor- played by Joel D. Wynkoop- takes Mike down the hallway and then, for no reason, starts beating him up.  We learn later that this got him fired from his job.  When you hear the reason for him attacking Mike, the logic will just get dumber.  

The narrative then focuses on a sad, crazy guy in a hotel.  He has a vision of his dead wife and a flashback to when she died.  Her death occurs via stock footage from the first film in which Mike runs over a woman and a baby.  Stay classy, movie!  He goes to his doctor, but the guy is not a lot of help.  

When he sees a story about a guy who sells serial killer merchandise, the ghost appears again and tells him to take action!

The film falls into a pattern of scenes.  Don't you just love repetition in cinema?
* A copper-masked killer attacks someone.
* We see Wynkoop moping about and/or being sad.
* The crazy guy sees a vision of his wife.
* We are shown stock footage from Truth or Dare?: A Critical Madness.  It was just great the first time!
Basically, you can just pick any of those scenes at random and you have the Second Act of the film.  Yea.

Finally, as the film begins to wrap up, we learn a bit of stuff.  Wynkoop was a hospital worker when Mike Straub escaped in the first film.  They use footage of him in the film as a minor character and just retcon it in, basically.  He feels bad for all of the deaths that occurred after that escape, so he became a doctor there...because it's just that easy.  Out of rage, he attacked Straub and got himself fired- dumb-ass.  

The copper-masked killer (also played by Wynkoop for no clear reason) has been targeting people who made money from Straub's actions.  Wynkoop's girlfriend- who is way out of his league- is kidnapped and our hero tracks her down.  He follows the doctor from earlier to a warehouse and is attacked by the killer.  He takes him out, only to be confronted by the doctor.  

He had his girlfriend- hello, new character- pretend to be the guy's wife in order to drive him mad.  The guy recovers and kills the doctor, before ultimately killing himself out of grief.  

The woman runs away, only to be haunted by he ghost of the killer.  The End...for now.

The third time is still a failure!  The plot of this movie is a big, confusing mess.  We have a series of characters that have almost no connection to each other in a film that barely makes sense.  

What drives the doctor to make his patient a killer?  

What makes the killer able to gain 50 lbs in order to be played by Winkoop?  

In the stupid, second film, Wynkoop playing the character was at least a plot point.  Here- it just seems like they film a bunch of scenes of him in the outfit and decided later how it would fit in.  Stop taking movie advice from Ed Wood!  

Like the second film, it really thinks that it is clever.  The action is not that good and, on top of that, the pacing kills it.  We go long stretches without a kill, while a couple of the kills are over very quickly.  The serial killer exploiter guy- who looks like the hero from Time Chasers- has a long, drawn out death.  He's beaten up, stabbed, has chemicals poured into his mouth and is ultimately strangled.  

You saved all of your rage for him, huh?  The whole thing is just cheap and the DVD release does nothing to help matters.  

If you like DVDs that are VHS Transfers without Menus of any kind, you're in luck!  If Ritter didn't try and the people behind the DVD release (probably Ritter too) didn't try, why should you care?  

On the plus side, check out the cameos by the Rumpelstiltskin and Creep (another Ritter film) posters below...

Next up, we change gears dramatically with a Disney film.  After being denied a DVD release for a decade, how does it turn out?  Stay tuned...

VHS For My Loss: Wicked Games (aka Truth or Dare 2)

Here's a treat for all of you Tim Ritter fans- all four of you.  After the 'success' of Truth or Dare?: A Critical Madness, Ritter made this film.  Confusion abounds, however, as an IMDB search for Truth or Dare 2 brings up a 1995 film called Writer's Block.  Wrong movie.  Today's film is actually 1994's Wicked Games aka Truth or Dare 2.  If it helps you, Truth or Dare 3 is actually called Screaming For Sanity: Truth or Dare 3.  I don't think that will help most of you, huh?  So what is the plot?  A slew of new killings take place in Fort Pierce, Florida.  This happens to be the same place where Mike Strauber went crazy, put on a copper mask (hopefully after it cooled) and went on a killing spree.  For those who care, here is my review of that film.  Will it be more coherent than the last film or, dare I say it, not suck?  You really have to ask?  Get out your autograph book, because we're going to ask Chris Isaac about...

The film  begins with some long, opening credits.  This is followed by an awkward couple playing around in bed, accompanied by cheesy music and bad lighting.  After a few minutes of this, we get to the point when a man comes in with a gun.  This may seem familiar to those of you who have seen Truth or Dare- it is.  The difference here is that he...asks them to continue (under duress) and leaves.  He ends up at the home of his best friend- an old cop who is in to the 'kinky stuff.'  I didn't need that visual- thanks a lot!  Never mind the idea of a cop having a regular affair with a prostitute or anything.  Our mullet-sporting, main character is allowed to stay with the guy for a while while he gets back on his feet.  You see, the lady having sex was his wife- soon to be his ex-wife.  That night, he can't sleep and starts drinking.  Note to filmmakers: when you're doing 'day for night' inside, don't leave a window partly-open!  He has a weird, freak-out nightmare and hears the famous line 'do you want to play Truth or Dare?'  The vision of his friend commits suicide before the real one shows up to wake up our 'hero.'  A bit later, a couple go out for a picnic, but it turns sour when the idea of rape comes up.  The woman flees and a copper-masked killer takes out the man.  That's fine and dandy...until he garrotes her.

The cop immediately suspects that his friend is behind it, but this is based on very little.  The key reason: he's the cousin of Mike Straub, the killer from the original film.  Speaking of the guy, he has a few awkward scenes where he meets up with his soon-to-be-ex-wife and her new husband-to-be.  The point of these scenes is highly-questionable, especially given that the whole point of them is to show that he hates her.  Yeah, we already got that, movie!  We get some more victims as a brothel- cleverly disguised as the Producer's house- is attacked by the copper mask-wearing killer.  He takes out three of them, although one of them sketches a drawing of a head in her own blood.  Naturally, the cop sees this and figures that it's the copper mask-wearing killer.  Well, it is, but there's no way that you would know that based on that drawing!  It could be a guy wearing a cobalt mask, for all you know!  In addition to all that, the aimless film focuses on the prostitute from earlier as she goes to her therapist.  It's a weird scene and serves nearly no purpose, other than to show that she likes being hit.  Thanks for that, I suppose.  The cop confronts his 'friend' at what appears to be the park near my house, but that doesn't go well.

This only gets weirder before it ends, people!  Remember the prostitute?  She meets up with a 'john' at a hotel, but gets killed after the deed is done.  Thanks for skipping that part, but I could have gone without seeing the 'john' in his underwear before he dies too!  This really upsets the cop, but it's a bit hard for him to say why.  We get another random killing by the copper mask-wearing killer.  This time it's a lady sunbathing and he stabs her head into a water sprinkler, causing it to shoot out her blood.  Yeah, not so much.  The cop finally confronts his friend more dramatically, saying that he's going to bring him in.  The guy gets knocked out, however, and the guy just leaves.  In another random scene, we see the psychiatrist from earlier making out with a dummy.  Random!  The cop calls the psychologist and explains that they need to stop his friend before he finally kills the ex-wife and new lover.  They get stuck in traffic, however, allowing him to kill the couple with a torn soda can and bottle of suntan lotion, respectively- don't ask.  The man flees from the cop, but eventually gets found sometime later.  The psychologist shows up and we get the big reveal: they were all the killer- just at different points.  But wait- there's one more reveal: this whole film was the fantasy of Mike Straub, who sees his doctors as killers.  No, really.  The End.

Strike two!  The plot of this movie is both simple and confusing.  That's never a good sign in a movie.  On one hand, it's so obvious where it is all building up to.  We all know that 'fat Kenny Powers' is going to kill his lady and the new man.  On the other hand, the plot is so muddled with side characters and random kills that it's hard to find the time to care!  If they had just stuck with the original ending sequence, it might have helped a bit.  It's sort of a rip-off of '10 Little Indians,' but that story has been ripped off more than a tourist in Mexico!  The second ending they put on there just makes you want to punch someone.  On the bright side, I know Tim Ritter lives in the same state as I do, so he's probably not too hard to track down!  Congratulations, you went from ripping off '10 Little Indians' to ripping off The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari!  By the way, it's not as clever as you think.  It just makes you look sad.  The production values are barely worth nothing, given that the movie has a reported budget of $10,000.  Watch for the Extras in the scene where the masked man is being chased by a cop- they don't even flinch.  'That Tim Ritter is shooting his shitty movie on the beach again, mom!'  'Just ignore him, son- he does this every year.'  Is this better than the first film?  Well, it is more coherent (sort of), but it's hard to say.  As the poster for Alien vs. Predator says, 'whoever wins, we lose.'

Up next, I introduce a new series- Retro Trash.  In the introductory piece, we get an obscure, Hammer film about killer mud from the center of th Earth.  Stay tuned...
  

VHS For My Loss: Truth or Dare?

What makes a film a cult classic?  Is it the fact that it's rare and hard to find?  Is it the age of the film?  Or is it just the fact that nobody saw it?  There's a great excerpt from Bruce Campbell's book that talks about how 'A hit film is seen by 1 million people 1,000 times, while a cult film is seen by 1 thousand people 1,000,000 times.'  Why do I bring this up?  Because today's review is of a film from 1986 that is considered to be a cult classic by many.  The film had a widespread VHS release in its day, but it took a while for it to be released properly on DVD.  In fact, there are two sequels- the first is not on DVD (at least through Netflix) and the other is.  So what is this film Truth or Dare?: A Critical Madness about?  Basically, a guy goes crazy when something traumatic to him and he becomes a crazed, serial killer.  That's pretty much it.  Believe me, there's more to talk about, but that's the gist of it.  This film was made by a young Tim Ritter, who has gone on to be involved in numerous other Direct-to-VHS/Direct-to-DVD releases over the years.  Basically, he's a one-man Polonia Brothers- not to be confused with how they are post-2005.  I'd say that the joke was in bad taste, but, considering those guys made Feeders 2, I'd say that neither one of them can judge me when it comes to that!  So yeah, does this movie live up to its reputation?  We'll see.  Get out your random mace for my review of...

The beginning of this film is a serious drag, as it takes its sweet time getting going.  Remember the beginning of Road Games?  That's nothing.  Hell, the beginning of Munich is more speedy!  Basically, a guy takes about five minutes- post credits- to drive home and find his wife having an affair.  He leaves, driving off to the woods and hearing the words spoken earlier over and over again.  Yes, repeat the bad dialog six or seven more times, movie!  The guy gets even weirder, apparently talking to a woman that sort of appears in the woods.  He plays 'truth or dare' with her, but it just consists of him maiming himself.  Thankfully for him, a cop arrives and sends for medical assistance.  What's the treatment for wasting my damn time?!?

Basically, the film devolves into a loosely-connected murders.  We get some filler too, but the 'highlights' include...
* The guy feeds a fellow mental patient a grenade.  Where did he get it?  I dunno.
* He kills the wife's lover, despite him not being near him.
* He kills one of the asylum patients with a pencil.  It's that easy!
* He kills a random kid by driving by him with a chainsaw...which mildly-wounds him.  That's sad.
* He kills a woman who yells at him for hitting her garbage cans, despite him loading up an arsenal in front of her!  She dies via mace (why not?) to the face.
* In the end, he gets tricked by a guard from the asylum and shot, only to have killed the woman in the closet...and then him.  He dies.  The End.

This movie sucks!  I get it- it was made for very little money.  There are many good films that were shot for a tiny budget...and this isn't one of them.  Had it been straight-forward, I could deal with it.  Instead, it's full of more padding than a training bra!  What's the point of most of this?  The only reason he maims himself is to have him wear that strange mask for the rest of the movie.  He kills people- big whoop.  Only the most shitty of shitty horror films- i.e. The Gardener- fail to not have that.  This film has nothing that you haven't seen before, but it was done better in those films.  What a waste of freaking time this movie was!  I don't care how 'obscure' it is, it still sucks.  Speaking of padding...

Next up, I take a long look at four of the most pretentious films ever made.  First up, a film about a man named Billy Jack who doesn't care for bikers.  Stay tuned...